THE NEW YORK TIMES CORRESPONDENT SHARES HIS IMPRESSIONS OF MEETING WITH AZERBAIJANI BILLIONAIRE
19:13 08/02/2013 ” SOCIETY
One of the richest people of Azerbaijan Ibrahim Ibrahimov walks
the way generals walk when they arrive in countries that they have
recently occupied, the correspondent of The New York Times writes
telling about his meeting with the head of the Avesta Concern,
Azerbaijani entrepreneur Ibrahim Ibrahimov.
NYT notes that project of Khazar Islands will cost about $100 billion,
which is more than the gross domestic product of most countries,
including Azerbaijan. “Some people may object. I don’t care,”
Ibrahimov said.
“Western financial analysts and real estate developers are
understandably skeptical. For one thing, there’s President Ilham
Aliyev’s regime, which opposes political competition and other reforms
that would diversify its economy and spur the long-term growth needed
for this kind of mega-project. There’s the fact that no one has ever
tried anything this ambitious in Azerbaijan,” the author writes.
The second reason according to the publication is the conflict
of Nagorno Karabakh, which didn’t get solution yet, as well as the
possible resumption of the war in Georgia and Israeli strike on Iran,
Azerbaijan’s southern neighbor. It also notes that last month, riots
raged for two days in Azerbaijan as people protested local corruption
in Ismayilli.
Journalist of New York Times notes that before he arrived in Baku,
Huseynli, Ibrahimov’s 23-year-old assistant, tried to convey just how
much power Ibrahimov wields in his country. But it wasn’t obvious
until he landed at Heydar Aliyev International Airport and showed
the passport-control officers a letter from Huseynli stating that
I would be meeting with Ibrahimov. “The letter included Ibrahimov’s
name and signature at the bottom, and it seemed to frighten, shock
and amaze all at once. A crowd of guards and customs agents gathered
around and stared in silence,” the author writes.
The article says that Ibrahimov was born in a village in the
Nakhichevan. He called his father a “good Soviet” and a major influence
in his life, but some suspect that Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s previous
president, played a more important role. The article says that Aliyev
also came from Nakhichevan.
The Azerbaijan Tower, Ibrahimov proclaimed, would definitely be
in Guinness World Records, and if the Saudis or Emiratis or anyone
anywhere tried to build a bigger building, then he would build an
even bigger one.
“I asked him if there was anything Freudian about all these
skyscrapers. He didn’t reply. Then suddenly, Ibrahimov blurted a
series of unprompted factoids in his faux-profound style,” the author
of the article writes. He notices that Ibrahimov is hoping to impress
more skeptical international investors.
In response to the question of the correspondent of the American
magazine what he thinks about the lack of transparency, the lack of
civil liberties, the detention of opposition activists in the country
Ibrahimov answered, “I don’t know anything about politics.”
But “biznessmen” are much more intimately woven into the political
fabric of Russia or Azerbaijan than C.E.O.’s in the West. They may
wear crocodile-skin shoes, but they rely on the state for pipelines
and extraction rights,” the article says.
Source: Panorama.am